


Don't Mine Down/ A Hunger Games Short Story

by beetective



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 05:36:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16034072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetective/pseuds/beetective
Summary: A short story with an unknown District 9 contestant in the 32nd Hunger Games.





	Don't Mine Down/ A Hunger Games Short Story

**Author's Note:**

> This was a Yr !0 English assignment I had to write, but I thought it was pretty good so I may as well post it on here.

The grass on the rolling fields around me shifted in the wind as I lay there, my limbs spread to form a sort of star shape if one of the points was twisted. The twisted point was my arm bent at an indescribable angle, you would think that due to this I would be dead due to blood loss but no, life is funny like that. None of the major arteries was broken.

It was sunny, not a cloud in the sky and I laughed at this even though my arm hurt like it had been put in a meat grinder. The heat was warm and spread through my body, it reminded me of the time I would sit in the wheat fields and just sit there.

How times have changed.

I really did think I had a chance at winning, maybe I got to too cocky, but I got to the top  _ four _ . The top four out of twenty-four. The odds seemed to be in my favour.

This year’s game was quite unique to what we had seen previously, the cornucopia was on a platform - a table like structure I would say - high up above everything else. The only way to get to it was ladders or ropes, both were death traps as the ladders were rusted and some rungs were missing while some of the ropes were cut in a way that if you climbed the, you would fall.

Many contestants fell to their death - it was high enough - or got severely injured during the drop. I was lucky to get down relatively safely apart from some rope burns.

Around the cornucopia was what I was lying in, the grass field. Some parts of it had high grass that hid bear traps or other nasty things like bombs, I only went into them once to hid near the beginning of this slaughter fest. Though my luck helped me survive the cornucopia and the getting away from the platform, it seemed to wear thin as I had fallen into one of the underground tunnels.

That was the special thing about this arena, though the ground what flat up above, there was a far bigger playground right underneath our feet.

My claustrophobia did not help with this.

Pretty much everyone died in those mines, going above ground would mean getting an arrow or spear thrown through your chest from the careers up above. Like vultures, they sat there waiting for the little mice to come out of the safety of their hidey-holes.

This did not last for long as they got bored, so they decided either to gas us out or go into them themselves. Yes, the showrunners had supplied this games with canisters of gas, but as it turns out they were extremely prone to exploding without much effort.

So after the careers numbers dwindled, they decided to just go into the mines. 

I didn’t hear too much for a few days apart from one or two cannon shots.

How did I stay alive from all this?

Well, it wasn’t a tunnel I had fallen exactly, more like a small cave room. It was the perfect hidey hole, all I had 

 

to do was set traps around the entrance and the odds would be in my favour again.

Things did seem to run smoothly from there on out, I ate the mushrooms and fungus from the damp cave walls and there was even a cool pool of water.

Not my proudest days but I got through it.

Until the showrunners got a bit bored, there were only a few contestants left so it had been quiet for a whole two days, no cannon shots or screams.

So they decided to set loose the mutations.

Terrifying bat-like creatures were released in the mines to scare everyone out and make their way to the cornucopia. The size of a normal human, black as the night sky with no stars and long arms that dragged along the ground when they walked. Finished off with giant wings and razor-like talons.

Just when I thought that the showrunners could not make things worse, the mines started collapsing in.

There was now only four of us left and since I was pretty close to the cornucopia, I decided to risk it. Make a run for it and get to the top. Push everyone else off so I would be the victor.

I almost did it too but the physical exhaustion from the caves and my diet of fungus really made me weak. Barely making it to the top, I hoisted myself over the edge.

What I saw shook me to my core. During the whole entirety of the games, I had never seen anything as gruesome and nightmare-inducing as what I did on that platform.

One of the bat creatures was kneeling over a fellow contestant, eating the guts out of him or her. I couldn’t really tell because the face had been so damaged. It held the intestines in its hands and savagely gnawed at it, making wet smacking sounds.

That’s when I noticed the other kid.

She was holding a spear not too far away from it, not trembling at all. The girl was covered head to toe in soot, mud and other earthly extrements till I could hardly recognise anything else about her.

That’s when my brain clicked - the creatures relied on smell and hearing to see. She just smelt like the mines.

A cruel smile appeared beneath all that filth when she saw me. Raising the spear, she drew back her arm and readied herself.

I barely had any time to react as the spear came towards me and I tried to dodge it but my body didn’t work as fast as my brain.

It had pierced my shoulder and I had screamed the most I had ever done before, my wails of pain cutting through the air like hot knives.

Now, the creature had stopped eating and turned itself toward me.

Leaping towards me like a leopard, it dug its fearsome jaws into the same arm the spear struck, turning it into mincemeat.

Right then and there I made the last decision I could.

I fell backwards off the platform, ripping my now numb arm from the horrid nightmare itself.

My back shattered like a jigsaw puzzle coming undone when I hit the ground, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t feel anything other than my left arm.

The last thing I did as I stared up into the sun was raise a hand into the sun trying to capture it, just to feel free once more. My middle finger was missing.

Guess I really gave them the bird.


End file.
